The Myth of the Persecuted Church

[Fireball]

If one wants to research the principal persecution associated with xtianity, one need look no further than to the Jews, as the persecuted.

[Minimalist]

I mean, Nero's reign was longer than 12 years, and it's hard to see why he was so hated by the Christians if he didn't actually persecute them.

Study this:

http://www.oocities.org/athens/atrium/3678/Nero.htm

According to Tacitus, alone, Nero blamed the Christians for the fire in Rome. Annals, XV. This passage is not referred to in any other pagan, nor Christian writings until 400 CE. The Fantastic details of the sufferings of the Christians - dressed in animal hides and torn apart by dogs, crucified, and used as human torches - fits the pornographic masochistic obsession of the early Church. The sordid details of flesh torn and blood copiously shed is repulsive to the modern mind. For some reason the early Church wallowed in graphic descriptions of virgins violated and gored to death by bulls, old men crucified suffering horrific tortures and not to mention the over-fed lions of the Colosseum. By the way, the Romans did not feed their lions exclusively on Christians, any old mal-content would do; and more often did.
 
Eusebius, when the Church was triumphant in the 4th century, after the ‘persecutions’ could only find 146 martyrs in the history. As we shall see, in Lactantius, between Domitian in the nineties and Decius in the late 3rd century there was a long peace where the Church was not persecuted. There was then a brief period of political persecution, especially under Diocletian, before his successor formed an alliance with them in the beginning of the 4th century. Constantine defeated his political opponents with the assistance of the Christians and recognized the fact when he held power. This period, of the Ante & Post-Nicene Fathers, knows nothing of Nero’s fire and its Christian victims.

In On The Historicity of Jesus Richard Carrier shows how simple it would be to forge a single sentence into the Annales of Tacitus and thereby change it from blaming Chrestus - and the Chrestianos which word shows up in ultra violet examination in the sole remaining manuscript of Annales as having been altered in the 9th century by a scribe.  The fact that not a single writer, xtian or pagan, knows jack shit about Nero blaming the xtians for the fire is damning.

[chimp3]

Most of the early (and later) persecution of Christians was by other Christians. Still is today. I believe this forum has a one eyed apostate that can attest to that?

[Minimalist]

This is another aspect of the problem that christards cannot face.  They love to speak of early xtians as some monolithic group and they manifestly were not.  This is what Moss means when she speaks of the church's history being formed in the 4th century after Constantine had granted them legal status.  Once Theodosius in the late 4th century made them them the official state religion it was off to the races to exterminate any other xtian groups who disagreed with the proto-orthodox view.

And here we sit, 1600 years later when these fools trot out a lie that makes they feel all warm in the shorts.

[Pat Mustard]

I mean, Nero's reign was longer than 12 years, and it's hard to see why he was so hated by the Christians if he didn't actually persecute them.

Nero was so hated because he was an easy scapegoat. You've got to remember that even shortly after his death he was reviled and traduced by Roman authors and authorities. When the bishops of Rome were trying to retcon their congregations early beginnings a few centuries later (in order to bolster their claims to the status of patriarch), they found his reign an easy place to throw a few lies into the already salacious mix of truth and calumny.

For example the "persecution" after Rome burned was largely established by substituting christian for jew (who were actually persecuted back then), and it was readily believed.

[chimp3]

This is another aspect of the problem that christards cannot face.  They love to speak of early xtians as some monolithic group and they manifestly were not.  This is what Moss means when she speaks of the church's history being formed in the 4th century after Constantine had granted them legal status.  Once Theodosius in the late 4th century made them them the official state religion it was off to the races to exterminate any other xtian groups who disagreed with the proto-orthodox view.

And here we sit, 1600 years later when these fools trot out a lie that makes they feel all warm in the shorts.

They probably labeled other Christians "Romans" the same way we label Trumptards "Fucking Nazis"!

[Amarok]

I thought the myth was he played the fiddle while Rome burned.

There are several things that make me think perhaps the Christians WERE persecuted at some point. One is the NT. It's almost like there was a concerted effort to advise followers to endure persecution as best they could. Why would so many writers think it was a point that needed to be addressed?

This isn't to say that the persecution went on for centuries or anything. And I think its plausible that later on, some Christians were encouraged to offer embellished stories of persecution BECAUSE OF WHAT WAS WRITTEN IN THE NT. But still, it seems reasonable to assume the Christians were genuinely persecuted at one point in history.

Yup that's a myth too . 

Were the Christians persecuted or did they merely perceive themselves as such.

[Minimalist]

Nero was so hated because he was an easy scapegoat.

Nero is one of those people in history ( Caligula and Herod the Great immediately spring to mind as two others ) for whom we have nothing except the reports of his enemies surviving.  And who were those enemies?  The upper classes who were taxed for his ambitious building projects and his restoration of the city after the fire.
The empire was generally at peace until the Jews got uppity.  There were no reports of unrest among the populace which generally benefited from the emperor's largesse but the senatorial and equestrian classes were always pissed about the costs associated.  If there was one thing that the Julio-Claudian emperors understood it was that you could not get blood from a stone.  There was no point to taxing the urban mob in Rome so the rich fucks got handed the bill and just like the WLB and his rich-fuck buddies today they resented it because they were just as greedy as modern republicunts.

So generations later upper class writers - and given the limitations on literacy almost all writers were upper class - wrote down every calumny about Nero that they ever heard.  That does not make any of it true.  The lack of popular resentment suggests that Nero was continuing the same policies as the other early emperors ( even Caligula ) in keeping the populace quiet.

And yes, Nero was reported to have been at Antium ( modern Anzio ).  The fire started in July and the Roman elites normally headed out of the city to escape the stifling heat of Rome in the Summer.  Nothing unusual there at all.  Tacitus himself, in 15:39 of Annales reports that Nero hurried back to Rome and undertook extraordinary steps to relieve the suffering of the homeless.  BTW, he also sneaks in at the end of the passage that there was "a rumor" that Nero sang about the burning of Troy while Rome burned.

[vorlon13]

[Minimalist]

Pretty shitty archery work!